Found a old Dell Optiplex case at a thrift store that runs a Ryzen 7 now

I was digging through the bins at the Goodwill on 42nd street last weekend and spotted a beat up Dell Optiplex 390 case for like 8 bucks. The side panel was dented and it had a huge layer of dust inside but the plastic front was perfect. I grabbed it on a whim and spent Sunday fitting my old Ryzen 7 3700X build inside it. Had to Dremel the drive cage out and drill new standoff holes but everything fits snug now. The best part is nobody at my LAN party knew it was a modern rig until I fired up Cyberpunk. Has anyone else tried squeezing a full size GPU into one of those slim office cases?

2 comments

2 Comments

valwest7d ago

oh man i went through the exact same thing with an old HP EliteDesk 800 G1 i found at a flea market for 5 bucks. the trick for the slim GPU problem is to look for cards that have a single slot cooler and are under 7 inches long. i used a Zotac GTX 1650 low profile and it slid right in after i cut out the front plastic fan mount. also check if your case has a 24 pin power connector layout that matches standard ATX or if you need an adapter. the worst part is always the stupid proprietary front panel header layout but you can usually bodge it with a pinout diagram and some jumper wires. your Cyberpunk test is the real proof nobody expects a sleeper build to crank out 60fps at 1080p.

ivan2117d ago

I dunno man, cutting up a fan mount and bodging front panel headers with jumper wires sounds like a lot of work for a $5 flea market score. Is it really that serious? You're basically turning it into a science project. At what point do you just admit the case isn't worth the hassle and drop $50 on something that actually fits? Those proprietary header pinouts are a nightmare. Half the time you fry something trying to get the power button to work. People get all excited about sleeper builds but forget they're still running old hardware with limited airflow. That GTX 1650 is probably thermal throttling after twenty minutes of Cyberpunk anyway. Not saying it can't be done, just saying it's a lot of headache for a machine that'll be outdated again in two years.